


The Toby Question

by janescott



Category: Confessions of Dorian Gray
Genre: First Person Narrative, M/M, radio play fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-17
Updated: 2012-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-21 08:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janescott/pseuds/janescott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little ficlet borne out of the Confessions of Dorian Gray audio play. Dorian and Toby share a moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Toby Question

**Author's Note:**

  * For [magenta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magenta/gifts).



> A gift for magenta - hardly fair to ask you to beta a present, but neutralisation very kindly stepped in - thank you. 
> 
> I own nothing. :-)

The club is, as always, crowded, the noise thumping right at the base of my spine as I try to move through the packed mass of sweating, heaving bodies. 

It’s nearly impossible, moving through the oblivion of other people. They close their eyes, and they let the music - and the booze, and the drugs, and the sex - take them away for a while.

They don’t understand - yet - that oblivion is a terrible lie. If they could live as long as I have, they’ll know that oblivion doesn’t exist.

He’s not here. I can’t see very well, what with the strobe lights, like a frantic heartbeat, and the press of bodies, but I know he’s not here.

I turn and make my way out to the street. It’s late, and it’s raining, heavy and cold, slanting sideways. It’s a shit of a night to be anywhere but inside, warm and dry somewhere, but people will insist on trying to make _connections_.

I step out to the street, and flag down a passing taxi, giving the driver Toby’s address. He’s not been at any of the past three clubs I’ve tried, and frankly I’m getting tired of the search. If he’s not at his flat, I’ll just wait until he comes home.

This … craving I have for him, for his company, I suppose it’s not normal, given what he is - given what _I_ am, but anything ‘normal’ and I parted company a very long time ago.

The cab pulls up outside Toby’s building, and I pay the driver, just as the skies open up again, the kind of driving, heavy rain that soaks you instantly. 

I dash for the door of the building and fumble for the key Toby had given me the week before. The building is old, and rather self-consciously pretentious. I stand by the elevators in the foyer and wait for it to creak and groan its way down.

Toby, of course, lives on the top floor.

I let myself into his flat and think, at first, that he’s not there - the flat is silent and cold; and the windows are dark. I pocket the key and go to switch on the light.

I can at least have a shower while I’m waiting.

“Don’t.” The word suddenly comes from the depths of the flat, and I see a shadow over by the window. “Leave the lights off Dorian.”

I pause for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust, and when the room is grey shadows rather than black, I pick my way through the furniture, over to the window, where Toby is standing.

He’s dressed all in black, as near as I can tell - little more than an outline in a room full of shadows, his face and hands no more than a pale smudge.

I’m still not used to not seeing his reflection.

“What are you doing here in the dark?”

He sighs and turns to face me, leaning against the window.

“I looked for you tonight,” I explain, feeling suddenly … inadequate, and needy. If it were anyone but Toby, I’d be getting angry. Frustrated at the very least.

But because it is him. I just … wait.

The silence stretches, only filled in by the rain drumming against the window.

Toby reaches out a hand, tracing a finger down the side of my face, where I can feel water dripping. I shiver, suddenly cold.

“You’re soaked, Dorian.”

“Yes. It’s bucketing down out there. Can I borrow a towel?”

He smiles then, nothing more than a small, pale shadow, but I know him so well that I can spot it easily.

“I can do better than a towel, Dorian. Come on.”

I follow him through the dark rooms to the bathroom. 

“Can I turn the light on? I’d hate to slip over on the tiles.”

Toby doesn’t say anything, but he reaches behind me, flicking the switch. He feels ice-cold when his hand brushes past my face, and I can’t suppress another shiver.

Toby runs a hand down my arm and smiles again, as I blink in the suddenly bright light and I think _so that’s how it is tonight_.

“Let’s get you warm and dry,” he says, right against my ear.

He turns and starts fiddling with the shower taps while I strip quickly out of my wet clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Toby quirks an eyebrow at me for that but says nothing.

It feels oddly like some kind of victory.

“Here, come test the water. I can’t tell if it’s too hot.”

I do my best to concentrate on the temperature of the water while Toby quickly undresses, throwing his clothes into the hamper in the corner, before scooping mine up.

“I - uh. It’s right. The water, I mean.”

“I know what you meant. Come on. Let’s warm you up.”

There’s a look in his eye that should have me worried, or scared, but it’s … Toby. He might take from me, and take, and _take_ but I know he would never deliberately hurt me.

I step under the hot spray and tilt my head back, closing my eyes. The water feels good - soothing and warming, after being caught out in the rain. I hear Toby step into the shower, but I don’t move, and I don’t open my eyes.

He slides his hand along my arm, moving closer until I can feel the chill of him everywhere. I still don’t move, even as he presses his hand against my neck. I know he’s feeling the pulse under there, speeding up under his hand, and the blood, drawn to the surface by the heat of the water.

“You’re so _warm_ , Dorian,” he says softly, before I feel the tiny pinprick of fangs against the vein in my neck.

I grip his biceps tightly, using him as an anchor to hold myself upright as he drinks. I have no need for shame, or hesitation, so I press my body against his, feeling it warm up as he drinks his fill; my blood now running in his veins of ice.

He stops, just before I think I’m going to get light-headed, and licks at the puncture wound with his tongue, pulling an entirely different kind of shiver from me. I feel him laugh against my neck, then, as he slides a hand between us and squeezes where he finds I’m hard, pushing against his thigh. 

“Dorian, Dorian … what am I going to do with you?”

The real, true answer is ‘anything you want to’, but I don’t say that. He knows that already. 

I open my eyes and find a half-smile, a smirk from somewhere, pushing it out towards him. “I’m sure that you can think of something.”

Toby laughs then, bright and loud, bouncing off the echoey tiles in the bathroom. He reaches around and turns off the shower taps.

“Come on. Time to really get dry, and warm, Dorian.”

He helps me out of the shower and starts running a towel over me, lingering in certain spots, until I’m grasping his shoulder just to stay on my feet.

“Toby - “

“It’s all right. Let me - let me take care of you, tonight.”

“I - Toby - “ but that’s all I can say before he’s dropping to his knees, looking up at me through his lashes, water dripping over his face and down his torso.

“Please.” 

It’s so soft that I almost miss it, but in the end I just nod, as he envelops me in his mouth, taking my length in easily. It’s an odd contrast - his mouth feels hot, whereas his skin is already starting to cool to its normal iciness, even after he’s drunk. 

Part of me wants to question it, wants to say - Why now? Why are you doing this now? The rest, however, remains a selfish hedonist, and I tangle my fingers in his thick hair, knowing I’m not going to hurt him as I start to push and thrust brutally into his mouth, watching his face the whole time.

He closes his eyes and grips my hips tightly with his fingers, hard enough for bruises to form later. It feels like an eternity - a whole lifetime of nothing but Toby on his knees, his mouth stretched around my prick as he sucks and licks as though his life depended on it.

Which, really, is almost funny, if you think about it. When he opens his eyes - when his pupils flare and dilate in the false light of the bathroom - when he looks right at me - right _into_ me - that’s when I come. 

My shout echoes off the bathroom walls, like Toby’s laugh earlier, and suddenly I can’t stand; my knees give out and I’m on the floor.

Toby kisses me on the side of my mouth - almost sedately - given what he was just doing, and he says. “Come on, Dorian. Let’s go to bed. You must be exhausted.”

I don’t know why he suddenly wants to take care of me - I’m not entirely sure that I want to know, either, but it’s such a rare thing - like a man living in his early 20s for a hundred years, or vampires being real, or - or dragons, or spirits in the walls - that I simply reach out my hand to him and let him put me to bed.

When I wake, hours later, I’m alone in Toby’s giant bed, and I wonder why it’s never occurred to me to ask him where he sleeps during the day. I resolve to ask him that night, then I let sleep take me under again.

I am - after all - still exhausted.


End file.
